Lieberman knew that El Perro and the Tentaculos had simply driven a string of businessmen and shop owners out by intimidation, threat, token payment, and occasional minor but distinct violence. Emiliano Del Sol might well be able to control a string of businesses in his neighborhood. He was crazy but El Perro was no fool. Someday he would lose control and not get away with it. Someday there would be too many witnesses and Emiliano Del Sol would be in Stateville, maybe even on death row. He’d make a great death-row lawyer and he had a massive, morbid knowledge about famous killers. “Gary Gilmore,” El Perro had once said, “he was stupid man. Just stupid. Wrote some poetry not worth a shit. I don’t see the big deal. Gary was just nuts and lucky. Ted Bundy was smart, but crazy nuts too.” El Perro could go on. His fascination with famous killers was almost matched by his passion for the Cubs, a passion shared by Lieberman.
“I need a favor, Viejo,” said El Perro.
“Big favor?”
“Piedras got picked up again. Got in a fight with three guys. Hurt one of them pretty bad, hospital. Cops got there and Piedras hit one of them, broke his nose, the cop’s. They’re holding him at the North on about, who knows, twenty counts. Piedras has a record. I need Piedras. They could put him away till he’s an old man on this one.”
Piedras, the size of a Geo Metro, had an IQ slightly higher than a white rat, but he was El Perro’s main enforcer, completely loyal, totally faithful. Piedras was too stupid to be crazy.
“Big favor, Emiliano,” said Lieberman.
“You owe me, Viejo. We owe each other.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but you know one of these times, I won’t have the favors to call in.”
“Viejo,” El Perro said. “Then call me back. If you get Piedras out, I got a free one for you.”
“I’ll call you back in five or ten minutes,” said Lieberman. “But I may not be able to reach anyone who can help till morning.”
“Then Piedras will spend a night in jail,” said El Perro with a sigh. “No one will mess with him.”
“You think Manny would like a Big Mac?” asked Lieberman.
“Who the hell knows?” said El Perro and hung up.
Lieberman went inside the McDonald’s, got a Big Mac and a cheeseburger and a Batman glass for an extra buck. He had spotted Manny across the street while he was talking on the phone to El Perro. Manny was lounging back, windows closed, in a dark Toyota across Howard Street. Lieberman waited for a break in the traffic and crossed. Manny rolled down the window. Salsa music blared out into the night. Manny turned down the volume.
He was young, no more than nineteen or twenty, with pocked skin from a bout with some pox when he was a child in Guatemala.
“Have a Big Mac, Manny?” Lieberman said, handing him the bag and taking out the cheeseburger and the glass.
“Gracias,” Manny said.
Lieberman could see the shotgun lying on the floor on the passenger side. He ignored it.
“El Perro le gusto Julio Iglesias,” said Manny, turning the volume even lower. “No me gusta.”
Lieberman nodded, patted the young man on the shoulder, and backed away.
“Quieres usar mi telefono?” Manny offered.
“No, gracias,” Lieberman said, crossing Howard Street, truly enjoying his cheeseburger.
He waited till he was finished before he called the North Avenue Station. He had spent much of his time as a cop in the North Station. His old partner was still there, promoted. Lieberman probably could have been promoted by now had he remained, but he had put in for a transfer closer to home.
Lieberman was in luck. The arresting officer was a veteran named Tosconi, Vito Tosconi, and Vito was still in the building.
“Abe?” Tosconi said in his gravelly voice when he came on the line.
“It’s me, Vito.”
“Heard you retired.”
“Not hardly,” said Abe.
“This a social chat, old times?”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing about the wife and kids, but I’m calling for a favor. Piedras.”
“Abe, the guy is an animal. Someday he’s going down for a Murder One. He should have years ago. We got him cold on a long count.”
“I would consider it a personal favor if you’d let him walk.”
“Walk? He broke my partner’s fucking nose, sent a citizen to the hospital.”
“Vito,” Lieberman said, gently evoking seventeen years of friendship and favors, cover-ups, and stand-ups.
“Abe, it’s a bad idea,” said Tosconi.
“Nonetheless,” said Lieberman.
“El Perro?”
“El Perro,” Lieberman agreed.
“Ah, what the hell? My partner’s an asshole kid who’s gonna show off that broken shnoz like a Purple Heart and the jerk in the hospital is a drug dealer. If I don’t get trouble from above …”
“If you do, tell Sanchez to give me a call,” said Lieberman.
“Piedras will walk in the morning,” said Tosconi. “The drug dealer’s hurting but he’ll live and he’s not dumb enough to bring charges. I’ll talk to my partner about the facts of life. Listen, tell Del Sol who did you the favor.”
“I will. How are the wife and kids?”
“Carla is fine. Arthritis flares up once in a while. You know how that is.”
“I know,” said Lieberman.
“Kids are fine. Tony’s teenage rebellion, which lasted almost through his twenties, is over and he’s finishing a degree at UIC. And Angie is married to a cop and has two kids. You?”
“Bess is fine. Lisa’s in California. Divorced. Bess and I have the kids.”
“Life story. Just like that,” said Vito. “Sum up almost twenty years in a few words. Take care of yourself, Abe.”
“You too, Vito.”
Lieberman had finished his cheeseburger and was determined not to get another when he dropped a quarter and got El Perro himself on the second ring.
“Viejo?”
“Piedras walks in the morning. Courtesy of a cop named Tosconi.”
“The big old dago?”
“Same,” said Lieberman. “How about you let Manny go home now?”
“I’ll call him,” said El Perro.
“You said you had something else for me?”
“Yeah,” said El Perro happily. “A riddle. Like in Die Hard Three or Batman Forever.”
“I’m not good at riddles, Emiliano. And I’m tired.”
“It’s only a riddle ’cause I don’ know the answer,” said El Perro.
“Go ahead.”
“Why do six men sin pelo …”
“Bald men,” Lieberman supplied.
“Yeah, bald men. Why do six bald men all buy head rugs at one of those television hair places all at once?”
“Skinheads?”
“Pienso,” said El Perro. “I got a man who’s got a cousin who works at the place.”
“What place?”
“Harlem near Lawrence,” said El Perro. “You find the answer to the riddle, you let me know, verdad?”
“Gracias, Emiliano.”
“El mismo, Viejo.”
By the time Lieberman got home it was after midnight and he was sure Manny was no longer behind him but halfway home blaring salsa music. Lieberman’s street was full. He had to pull into the alley and get out to open the garage door, which was uncooperative at the best of times. Lieberman went through the back door placing the Batman glass in the cupboard in the kitchen next to Barry and Lisa’s collection of cups and mugs—The Barbara Walters Specials, Hard Copy, Chicago Street Dental Group, the Save-the-Manatee mug that Melisa had painted herself. The kitchen light had been on. Not a good sign unless Bess had simply forgotten. Usually she left a table lamp on in the living room.
Lieberman moved through the dining room door, taking off his shoes as he went. The television in the living room was on but the room was dark.
“Bess?” he said softly.
David Letterman was on television. Bess never w
atched David Letterman. She didn’t like him. Bess clicked off the television set with the remote, got up slowly. She was wearing her white silk nightgown with the white cotton robe over it. Her hair was tied in a kind of pigtail and her arms were folded.
He moved to give her a kiss.
“I’m lucky,” she said in a tone that suggested she was nothing of the kind.
“We’re both lucky,” Abe said, kissing her gently.
“A high percentage of policemen have a drinking problem,” she said. “There’s even a support group for their wives and girlfriends.”
“I know,” said Lieberman.
“But what about policemen who eat Whoppers when they have high cholesterol,” she said, her arms still folded.
“A single cheeseburger,” said Lieberman holding up a finger. “It’s been a hard day.”
“They left at ten,” Bess said. “A round-the-clock two-man watch will be at the temple every night. The police will make frequent, unscheduled stops.”
“Good,” said Lieberman, following Bess across the dining room and into their bedroom where she sat on the bed, unfolded her arms, and put her hands on her knees.
Lieberman slowly undressed, waiting for whatever was coming, whatever had kept his wife up waiting for him. She let him take off his jacket, remove his gun and lock it in the night table with the key he wore around his neck.
“I stand before you,” Lieberman said, when he was completely nude. “One of God’s conundrums.”
“Lisa called,” Bess said, looking at her husband and trying not to smile.
“She’s coming for the kids,” he said.
“No,” said Bess. “And I assured her that you had taken care of the problem with the man in the park. She believed me, I think, particularly because she had something to tell me she considered important. Sit next to me, Abe.”
“Without my pajamas?”
“Without your pajamas,” she said.
“What did she say?” he asked, wanting to go brush his teeth and shave the white night stubble from his face.
“She’s coming to Barry’s bar mitzvah. She won’t fight it.”
“That’s good news,” he said.
“She is doing well at her job, whatever it is that criminologists do,” said Bess. “And she has met a man.”
“A man,” Lieberman echoed feeling particularly naked now.
“A physician she works with, a medical examiner, someone who cuts up dead people,” said Bess with a shudder. “They’ve been seeing each other frequently and she thinks he’s going to ask to marry her.”
Though Lisa was his daughter and had already been married once without success, he wondered from his own experience how anyone would want to spend his life with She Who Was Never Wrong.
“Talk, Bess,” Lieberman said. “I have a feeling …”
She held up her right hand to quiet him. “He is in his forties, an M.D. from Stanford.”
Lieberman resisted the urge to make his wife move faster.
“His name is Marvin Alexander,” Bess said. “According to Lisa, he is extremely famous in his field. He wants to meet us, the children.”
“Alexander?” asked Lieberman. “He’s not Jewish.”
“Neither is Todd, the father of our grandchildren,” Bess replied.
“So, they’re coming to the bar mitzvah?”
Bess nodded.
“So, fine,” said Lieberman. “Now I shave, brush my teeth, take my Cardizem, and we go to bed and maybe I sleep.”
“He’s black,” said Bess as her husband rose.
“Black?”
“African-American, negro,” said Bess.
“That, my love,” Lieberman said, kissing his wife’s cheek, “will make for one very interesting bar mitzvah.”
“Where you been?” asked Fallon when Pig Sticker came through the door shortly after midnight.
Pig Sticker shared the one-bedroom apartment in the Monger house with Fallon. The apartment was always clean. Piles of gun magazines were stacked in bookcases—Soldier of Fortune and various small circulation magazines about the rights of citizens which were being eroded and the lies the media told about history.
The furniture all belonged to the old owner. Her son had lived in the house and had been a close friend of Berk. Her son had been killed in a drive-by shooting in front of Berk’s house.
Fallon was on the floor doing sit-ups, a sure sign that he was sitting on his anger or frustration or cabin fever.
Fallon was wiry thin and in great shape. He could do hundreds of sit-ups and push-ups while the television blared. Fallon had done time. He had learned a lot. Since his hair was so naturally dark, it was hard for Fallon to keep his head cleanly shaven as much as he tried.
“None or your fuckin business,” said Pig Sticker, taking off his jacket and hanging it in the closet.
An old cowboy movie with Fred MacMurray was on the tube. Fred was in a bad way, inside a burning house, fighting off a bunch of guys with beards.
“Just asking,” said Fallon. “Hey, we’re all brothers, right and white?”
“Yeah,” said Pig Sticker, moving to a chair and siting to watch the movie, whatever it was.
“So, where you been?”
“Talking to the cops,” said Pig Sticker. “I set up a meeting, went into nigger turf, met a couple of cops in a park and told them everything. I’ve had a change of fuckin’ heart. I see that I’ve been wrong. I want to wipe the slate clean. Help make America the great melting pot. OK?”
Fallon laughed and kept doing sit-ups while he talked. “You are a crazy bastard,” he said as Fred MacMurray shot the last bad guy, an easy target, a fat old guy.
“I went to a bar on Elston,” Pig Sticker said. “Saw some of the guys there. We had a few beers, talked, and here I am. And, to tell the truth, Fallon, even though we’re right and white brothers, it’s none of your fuckin’ business where I go or when.”
Fallon shrugged and kept bobbing. “When you’re right, you’re right,” he said. “How about we go out for another few. On me?”
“It’s almost one,” said Pig Sticker. “I’m tired.”
“I can’t stay in this room. I’ve got to get out for a while,” said Fallon, suddenly stopping. Who knows how many sit-ups he had done. Sweat beaded on his bare chest.
Pig Sticker shook his head and got up. “One beer each,” he said. “You pay.”
Fallon jumped up and reached for his shirt.
“It’s the waiting for whatever’s coming down,” said Fallon, buttoning up. “I wish it was tomorrow. I hate waiting.”
Pig Sticker gave his roommate a whack in the head with his open palm. The blow had two purposes. One, it was supposedly a sign of masculine friendship. Two, it was a sign to Fallon that Pig Sticker was by far the more powerful of the two of them, that if they ever fought, it would be Fallon who would go through the window. The blow was enough. Pig Sticker put his arm around Fallon and said, “Let’s go.”
TWELVE
“NO PAY,” THE OLD WOMAN said, holding her hands folded together in front of her to keep them from shaking.
The cleaning store was small, a Lawrence Avenue institution that had gone through many hands, each reflecting a change in the neighborhood. Four Star Cleaners still got some customers from the high rises on Sheridan, especially from the Edgewater Beach Apartments, but most of their customers were neighborhood people, Korean, Vietnamese, some whites. The family of six that owned the Four Star worked long hours and delivered clothes clean and spotless for reasonable prices. They had one son in graduate school studying physics at MIT and a daughter, who now stood with her grandmother behind the counter, checking in a stack of shirts. She had just earned a full scholarship to the University of Illinois to study computer science when she finished her last year of high school.
Customers were not likely at the moment. The sky was dark, a very slight rain was falling, and rush hour wouldn’t really begin for another hour or so. The three Korean men who stood ac
ross the counter were spangled with water. Their dark hair was damp.
Kim and the two men with him glanced at the girl. One of the men kept looking.
“You pay, like always,” Kim said. “Or your store has an accident, a very big accident like the one that happened to Son Lee’s grocery a few months ago.”
“No pay,” the old woman repeated shaking her head. She would have been far more comfortable talking in Korean and she had a lot to say but the young man had refused to speak the language of his birth from the first day he had come into the store months ago and demanded protection payment.
The old woman’s husband was in the hospital, ill, something wrong with his lungs. He had always been a heavy smoker. Her son and daughter were away. There was just her and the girl.
“We had meeting last night,” the old woman said. “We no pay. You go away. We tell police. Jew policeman say we no have to pay.”
“The Jew policeman is wrong,” said Kim calmly, deciding what he should do to teach this woman to pay without complaint. Things were going wrong. There had been a meeting Kim had not known about. The police were showing up. Crazy Mexicans were threatening him and someone who had been at the restaurant had probably spread the word about the visit from El Perro. Something really big had to be done. He looked at the girl who looked back at him. She was pretty with long hair, a little on the thin side for him, but this was just going to be a lesson.
“No pay,” the old woman insisted, shaking her head.
Kim nodded to his right. The young man took off his sunglasses and started behind the counter toward the girl.
“No,” said the old woman stepping in front of him. “You no come back here.”
The young man pushed the old woman out of the way.
Kim nodded to his left. The second young man went behind the counter and headed for the long rack of clothes, and took a knife from his pocket.
There was a shot. Of that Kim was sure. He had not drawn his gun nor had his two men. He reached for his weapon as the man near the girl slumped to the floor holding his stomach, as if he were praying. The man with the knife turned at the sound and another shot came. This one hit the man holding the knife in the chest. His sunglasses went flying. His knife dropped to the floor.
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